Lawson, Louisa

Writer, publisher, inventor and activist, Louisa Lawson influenced Sydney life at the turn of the twentieth century in many ways. At her death, she was called 'the mother of womanhood suffrage in New South Wales'.

Lawson, Henry

Lawson, Louisa

Writer, publisher, inventor and activist, Louisa Lawson influenced Sydney life at the turn of the twentieth century in many ways. At her death, she was called 'the mother of womanhood suffrage in New South Wales'.

Magarey, Susan

Susan Magarey is Adjunct Professor in History at Adelaide University and founder of the Magarey Medal for biography.

Sydney Mechanics' School of Arts

The Sydney Mechanics' School of Arts sponsored a writer and researcher at the Dictionary of Sydney for three years - Catherine Freyne in 2009-10 and Mark Dunn in 2010-12.

Sydney Mechanics' School of Arts

Founded in 1833 on the model of Scottish Mechanics' Institutes, the SMSA sought to provide further education for working men through lectures, classes and a library. Many of Sydney's foremost intellectuals, inventors and innovators were associated with it, and it influenced the development of both the University of Sydney and technical education in New South Wales. It still provides a library and lectures to Sydneysiders in 2009.

Anderson, Maybanke

A founder of Sydney's women's suffrage movement, Maybanke Anderson was also a writer and teacher, and a lifelong campaigner for the rights of women and children.

The School of Arts movement

During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, about 140 schools of arts or mechanics' institutes were established in Sydney by volunteers. They were independent community organisations, assisted by a small government subsidy, and they thrived as centres of local community life. Today, their legacy in Sydney is more than just the surviving buildings. Out of these humble voluntary operations developed the local public library, the modern community or neighbourhood centre, and formal systems of adult and technical education.

A City of One's Own: Women's Sydney

A boom in apartment living brought freedom from the suburbs for many women in Sydney in the early twentieth century. In their writing, they celebrated Sydney as a place of unique freedoms, sensual pleasures and dangers for women;and the harbour as a steady, vivid source of joy

Berne, Dagmar

Dagmar Berne was the first female student of medicine at Sydney University and a pioneering doctor. Confronted by prejudice, she was obliged to travel overseas to qualify. She gained world-class degrees and was feted on her return to Sydney, yet was denied access to employment in general hospitals. She established a private practice, lectured, and worked with women's organisations to progress women's health in Sydney, before tuberculosis forced her to move to Springwood, and then Trundle, where she died suddenly in 1900